More than 24 hours had passed, but Rich Mauti’s feelings were still raw. “The NCAA has taken a grandstanding position in this for self-serving purposes,” Mauti said Tuesday of the unprecedented penalties dealt to the Penn State football program Monday. “They’ve been going on speculation for most part, and that’s disturbing as hell.”

The Associated PressPenn State University football linebacker Michael Mauti leaves the Lasch Football building after a team meetings explaining the ramifications of the NCAA sanctions against the Penn State University football program in State College, Pa., Monday, July 23.

Mauti, who described himself too angry and distraught to discuss the subject Monday, has a triple interest in the situation.

Before his seven years with the Saints, he was running back for the Nittany Lions in the mid-1970s.

And his two sons, Patrick and Michael, played there as well. Michael is a fifth-year senior linebacker while Patrick was a walk-on wide receiver from 2005-09.

Michael Mauti represented players from this decade in delivering the eulogy at former Coach Joe Paterno’s funeral in February.

Primarily, Mauti, who now owns a real estate firm in Mandeville, is unhappy about the speed at which NCAA President Mark Emmert moved to act in an unprecedented manner after the revelations included in the investigation by former FBI Director Louis Freeh into Paterno’s and other top school’s officials’ role in concealing allegations in the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.

“I’m gravely upset about the penalties, and because of the crimes committed by Sandusky, I can understand them,” Mauti said. “But I certainly disagree with the way they arrived at them - basing a decision on an investigative report they weren’t involved in.”

Emmert gained the authority from the NCAA’s executive committee to act beyond the usual investigative procedures because the school itself had commissioned the Freeh Report. Penn State accepted the punishments rather than face the possibility of the program being closed down for a season or more if it had fought them.

“The people doing the report were hired by the board (Penn State Board of Trustees) because they may be protecting the board in some way,” Mauti said. “If you’re the one doing the hiring, consider the source before you take the report and run with it.

“I’m not standing up for anybody. But let’s get the facts out in the civil trials and the other things to come before you affect the lives of so many innocent people through the actions of the NCAA.”

Mauti added he had no idea how much Paterno may or may not have known about Sandusky’s actions and that if Paterno had more power than he should have, it was because the leadership of the school allowed him to do so.

“They’re calling Penn State a ‘football factory,’ and everybody knows that’s just the opposite,” he said. “Joe made Penn State a special place because of his focus on education and his belief in doing things the right way.

“Joe was very protective of that and some people resented it. The man’s done a lot of great things. How do you eliminate that history?”

That history, even with all of the team’s victories since 1998 vacated, seems brighter than the future.

Along with the bowl ban, the Lions were docked 10 scholarships per year for the next four years and starting in 2013 must compete with no more than 65 scholarships, 20 under the NCAA limit during the probation period.

That means this could be Penn State’s last successful season for some time, although the Lions already were picked to finish no better than third in the Big Ten’s Leaders Division.

“You’d have to be very naïve to believe this isn’t going to have a radical effect on the program,” Mauti said. “It doesn’t kill the program, but it’s certainly going to be hurting.”

Another portion of the sanctions allows current players and incoming freshmen to transfer without having to sit out a year as is normally required.

Michael Mauti apparently won’t be in that number.

Although Penn State players have not been allowed to speak to the media since the ruling was announced, GeauxTigerNation.com on Tuesday reported Mauti saying that he is staying at Penn State and that he expected the core of the team to remain.

That core seemingly would include the team’s 17 other seniors, but underclassmen are likely to be more likely to move on.

“They’re being inundated with calls from coaches around the country,” Rich Mauti said. “Hopefully, the kids will stay, but you can’t blame any of them for leaving.

“I want to see the ones who do stay because of the reason they went to Penn State in the first place, which was for reasons beyond football. This is a grand opportunity for them to show what they’re really made of.”

Michael Mauti wasn’t supposed to still be here.

Last year was to have been his senior season and he was living up to his preseason All-Big Ten status. But in the fourth game, he suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee.

It was the second of Mauti’s career. He’d missed the 2008 season with a torn ACL in his right knee.

The latest injury, plus the subsequent revelations about Sandusky and Paterno’s firing meant leaving Penn State “was never an option,” Rich Mauti said.

“He wanted to be a part of the transition because it’s important for him to be a leader on the team,” Rich Mauti added. “He wanted to help the other players make sense of it all.

“At Penn State, it’s always about more than football. I wish more people were remembering that.”